A New Church in Singapore ???!!!

Church planting is the desire of many missionaries. Be it in the past, or even in the present. It can take form of a house church, underground church, on the ground church, etc. It can be in the jungle, in the desert, in the densely populated city, or just some common town or village.

In the city of Singapore, used to be called the garden-city, the newly proclaimed 'global city', however is a place where we are not lacking in church building.

Wait a second. Maybe I am being a bit too hasty, like what the old Treebeard said in Lord of the Ring. The church could be a new church that reaches out to a new group of unreached people group, or nationality right? I sincerely hope that it was so, but that is simply not the case.

According to the Singapore Church Directory, there are over 500 registered churches in Singapore, from those rigid conventional main stream denominations, to the new up beat type of youngsters mega churches, and we even have those reknowned cults such as True Jesus Church, Mormon, Church of the Heavenly Mother, Jehovah Witness, etc. Well, they continue to exist, as long as they don't break the law, and if I should add, so long as they contribute to the economy of the society.

There are churches for the Cantonese, Hakka, Hokkien, Hainanese, for Tamil, Malay/Peranakan people, for Korean, Deutch, Americans, you name it we have it. For the 100thousand or so Indonesian population in Singapore there are more than 16 churches of different denominations.

So I begin to ask, why there are two additional Indonesian churches established in this year 2008? are they going to help reaching out to those Indonesians who have yet to find a church or rather, the faith in Christ? if that is the case, I praise the Lord. But no. These churches started to ask and calling and inviting christians who are already attending churches regularly to go and attend their newly founded church. In the simple term, I call it "sheep stealing".

Some of my college friend, eg. sam, will say that "why you call it sheep stealing?, who is the shepherd anyway, is it not the Lord?" "Amen" I say. Indeed, if we have the view of Kingdom of God, it makes no difference where God's people going to worship, as long as they do worship God.

The issue here is this, why waste resource, money, people, to establish a new congregation here, where people are not lacking? and why not channel your resource to some outback countries like ethiopia, sudan, or even in the country in places like Kalimantan, Irian Jaya? Is it because the 'dollar' we are earning here is more valuable than the sweet potato grown by the dayaks or nalcas? go figure.. only the person in the leadership of these new churches have the answer.

oh yeah, don't give the bullshit answer such as "we have our congregation member from Jakarta who are in Singapore, so we have to come and build a church for them". Yes, I call that a bullshit answer. Simply.